letters to juliet

But really. We're going to Verona tomorrow. I'm wearing a floral dress and I'm going to hum to myself about love all day long.

I'm tempted to write Juliet a letter, not about my love life (interesting as that might be to exactly-no-one-other-than-me) so much as about myself.

I've been thinking about self-esteem lately, see, because it has been pointed out to me that one must live with oneself, hopefully, for a very long time. Unless you can see yourself as the greatest damn thing that's ever happened to the world, it's going to be really lame.

Rather, imagine you had a twin, but your twin sucked. I mean, insert whatever adjectives you will into the next bit of this, but in my head this hypothetical twin is awkward and ugly and always says the wrong thing at the wrong time, and people don't like this hypothetical twin at all. Now imagine your twin came with you everywhere and just embarrassed you at every turn, and people couldn't tell the two of you apart. That's a bit what it's like not to like yourself all that much.

There are parts of me that I love (and they tend to be the bits I identify with the most - smart, offbeat, cute, et cetera) but there are also bits that I don't, and I have to bring them around and feel ashamed of them. To hell with that.

And then there's the fact that commentators (I cannot call them journalists, but they are undoubtedly participants in "the media") are constantly throwing us information about how my generation is too in love with itself. We're too entitled and too self-absorbed and we never had to go all the way to the library to look something up and we should get off their lawns. (I really think that's all there is to this issue. The baby boomers are upset, like every generation before them, that the new generation is doing cool stuff.)

The point is, I'm trying to ignore all of that and reject this ridiculous mindset and acquire self-esteem someplace. And, as I've learned, writing about things seems to help.

Love always,
Clara